- WILDLAND FIRE? -
Introduction
Streamlining a complex process of coordination for wildland fire incident management teams.
The "E-IAP: Electronic Incident Action Plan" is a digital upgrade of the paper-based Incident Action Plan (or IAP) that incident management teams currently work 16 hours a day to create and distribute to firefighters on the field in large wildland fire incidents.
Watch the 3 minute concept video (planned, shot, and edited by me), and be immersed in the experience.
Role
Lead Product Designer
Project Manager
UX Researcher
Timeframe
6 Months
Feb to Aug 2021
Team
Fontayne (clinical research)
Ran (education)
Maisie (psychology)
Project
MHCI+D Capstone
Advised by Launch
Support of NW12 IMT
- FINAL MOCKUPS AND PROTOTYPES -
Final Design
A few screens from the final design and a little bit about how it works.
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Interact with the main map screen to toggle on and off assets on the map, side screen opens for more information.
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We addressed the connectivity issue with the screens on the left. To the right, capture an image to update the team.
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Approve resources from your mobile device. Also, navigate to any personnel's last known location.
Teams managing complex wildland fires are doing more with less personnel in dangerous, rapidly changing situations, and they are still doing it with paper.
Wildland Fires are getting more severe and the season gets longer every year due to global climate change. We are maxing out our national wildland fire resources, and doing more with less affects the safety and wellbeing of our firefighters.
- PROBLEM SPACE -
The Context
- WHAT IS THE PAPER? -
The Incident Action Plan (IAP)
The IAP contains critical information such as objectives, strategy, tactical actions, and supporting information for the current day. It includes incident objectives, organization assignment list, division assignments, radio communications plans, medical plan, traffic plan, safety plan, and the incident map.
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- IMPORTANCE OF INNOVATION -
Why We Need A Change.
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IAP is Labor Intensive
Creating the IAP every day is a highly manual and labor intensive process that takes 50+ people 16+ hours to make. The office and field teams collaborate face to face, sometimes traveling 2-3 times a day between the command post and the field for up to an hour each way for two weeks straight.
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Rapidly Changing Situations
When situations change rapidly, the paper IAP makes it hard to stay accountable for individuals, have situational awareness outside of your line of sight, quickly moving personnel where they are needed most, logging, and accountability.
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Static Paper Document
The IAP is a static paper document that lacks real time data and is impossible to update until the next day. However, situations change rapidly during the day and this leads to limited situational awareness, putting personnel and operations at risk and makes it hard to use resources effectively.
- HOW DID WE DO IT? -
Project Overview
- JOAN'S CONTRIBUTIONS -
My Key Responsibilities
I took a lead role in pushing this complex project from exploratory research to final designs and video deliverables by working smart and aligning team goals. Key to the success of this project was my initiative to find and build relationships with our now diverse community of stakeholders.
Outreach & Stakeholder Relationships
Took on the most critical part for the success of the project. No stakeholders = no project. Cold called hundreds people. Built relationships with 3 Incident Commanders out of 72 in the nation.
Team Strategy &
Project Management
Product planning, strategy, vision. Managed our team's calendar and budget. Overdelivered by accurately scoping and estimating our team's output, strengths, and collaborating on shared goals.
Workshop, Interview,
& Test Facilitator
Primary facilitator and designer for workshops, interviews, and usability studies involving stakeholders. Emphasis on co-designing as they had the experience in wildland fire.
Design Lead & Mentor
As senior designer and design mentor, I oversaw the design efforts for the team. Imparted design expertise w/ workshops, critiques, examples, books, and demos.
Field Research Trips
Led and coordinated field trips to live fires with the NW 12 Incident Management Team. Balanced goals, logistics, planning, team strengths, calendar, etc.
Videography
Spearheaded final video prototype. Camped and shot video and photos at Whitmore Fire for 3 days. Coordination, preparation, shooting, editing done by me.
- DISCOVER+DEFINE -
Research Timeline
Our team did a lot of exploratory and generative research into Wildland Fire to understand the complex problem space and human pain points within it.
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- CREATE+TEST+ITERATE -
Design Timeline
We created 100 concepts and used co-design (down selection workshop) to down select to the Incident Action Plan (IAP) concept. We came up with the storyboard through our field trip to Batterman Rd. Fire experiencing a full day of the making of the IAP in person. We spent a few weeks creating prototypes to test and did two rounds of testing and iteration: one remote and another in the field at the Whitmore Fire. Then finalized the designs and created the video.
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- 11 WEEKS TO LEARN -
The Research Phase
- HOW WE LEARNED -
Our Research Methods
Below is our research methods and how we learned about wildland fire communications and incident management.
Comprehensive Literature Review
Ground Up Recruitment
24 Interviews
Thematic Analysis of Interviews
Synthesis / Affinity Diagramming
Wildland Fire Conference
Competitive Assessment
Field Research at Live Fires
- WHO (WHAT WHY HOW) -
Our Stakeholders
In researching wildland fire communication, we needed to find and understand a great number of people and the positions they held to be able to create a viable product.
The Incident Command System (ICS)
Wildland Fire Incident Management Teams use the Incident Command System (ICS). We talked to people across the incident command system in order to get a holistic view of what information needed to be communicated during a wildland fire.
After research, we decided the most critical information that is the biggest factor in how quickly the fire gets put out is the communication between select groups at the incident command post and the people out on the field fighting the fire.
We focused on the Incident Commander, Incident Command Team, Operations Section, Planning Section, and Communications.
The Challenge of Finding Wildland Fire Stakeholders
We started this project with knowing exactly zero people in wildland fire. I dove in and took the initiative to get people to interview for our team to both understand the problem space and potentially gain access to a live wild-fire. I started with posting for interest on social media platforms and asking people to share. We weren't getting
the enough people in specific positions such as command staff and operations, so I started cold calling people. Eventually, I built enough relationships and gained enough trust that I was able to get our team accepted to join two live wild-fires with the NW 12 Incident Management Team, and they became our main stakeholders.
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These are some of the people we've interviewed and built relationships with over time both over Zoom and in person at the Batterman Rd. Fire in Wanatchee and the Whitmore Fire in Nespelem.
- WHAT'S OUT THERE? -
Competitive Analysis
There were a lot of products that were trying to get off the ground, but never did that were specific to wildland fire. Things that were successful were for other applications like the military or police organizations.
- WHAT WE LEARNED -
Research Findings
Using the research methods above, we learned a great deal about wildland fire communication. Here's a brief synopsis.
Unreliable
Connectivity
Connectivity limited and unreliable, making it difficult to utilize technologies.
Personal
Safety
Obtained through accountability chain. Out of the loop if outside of the chain.
Technology
Transition
Plethora of apps that require connectivity, not connected, manual input, growing pains.
Technology Interoperability
Tons of tech. Lack of interoperability = difficult to transfer accurate info.
Dynamic
Situations
Fire situations change rapidly, requires quick turnaround time for new tactical strategies.
Overexertion of Mind and Body
Heavy loads affect observation, response, and decision-making capabilities.
- EDITORIAL STYLE RESEARCH PAPER -
Final Research Paper
I led my team in designing an editorial style 90+ page research paper in order to give my team additional training as designers.
- THE SHOW -
Final Research Presentation
Our final research presentation was highly anticipated and attended by 40+ people from Wildland Fire, companies like Axon, Launch Consulting that work in industries tangential to fire, and people from academia.
- 9 WEEKS TO CREATE+TEST+ITERATE -
The Design Phase
- OUR NORTH STAR -
Design Principals
We created design principles from our research insights, to keep them front and center whenever we were designing.
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Usable in All Connectivity
Must be usable in all connectivity situations and bridge the gap between the current paper Incident Action Plan and one that has full connectivity.
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Must-Have Interoperability
Any technology needs to be able to bridge teams and their data together for cross-collaboration.
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Consider Human Factors
Be considerate of the things each category of personnel is dealing with and understanding their particular situations.
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Be Redundant
Any design needs to have contingency plans if it fails: primary, secondary, contingency, and emergency.
- CONCEPT GENERATION -
Ideation
Created 100+ initial concepts inspired by our research and design principles. We used methodologies like braiding, crazy eights, etc.
- NARROWING TO FINAL DESIGN -
Co-Design Group Stakeholder Workshop
We created and administered a two hour group co-design workshop in order to narrow to a final design through dot voting. After their selection, we wanted to understand why our stakeholders liked the design, the impact they think it would have, and the probablility of success.
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Zoom call to compliment co-designing on Miro
Co-Design Workshop Agenda
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Presented our concepts to our stakeholders
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Asked them to dot vote and explain why
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Best rated concepts had stories written about them from our stakeholder's perspective
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Our stakeholders agreed that digitizing the Incident Action Plan and extending it would make the biggest difference in wildland firefighting today
Screen captures from our co-design workshop with some of our wildland fire stakeholders.
- THE E-IAP WAS BORN -
The Initial Idea
Our group imagined a GIS based platform that would span multiple devices like tablet, mobile, desktop, and mobile accessible by everyone on the fireline with leadership having access to update and make changes. Maps with personnel location data, weather, current fire line, and work assignment visualizations. With location tracking, features could streamline processes such as logistics, planning, logs, creating the IAP itself, and check-in.
Why Our Stakeholders Chose the IAP.
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They liked the design because they could easily move and trade resources quickly throughout the day instead of waiting for the morning briefing to be more efficient in dynamic situations.
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The impact would reach everyone in wildland fire connecting the incident management team to the people on the ground for more up to date situational awareness
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They though it would have a high probability of success because there are already similar platforms out there for the military and they work in places with low connectivity. Wildland fire is also already looking to technology for efficiency and expanding capabilities because of resource shortages.
E-IAP Benefits
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Accountability
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Increased situational awareness on the fireline
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Increased situational awareness for command post
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Increased safety on the fireline
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Increased awareness of overall operations
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Automating logs
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Automating check-In
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Automating logistics
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Streamlining and visualizing operations
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Streamlining the production of the IAP
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Saves paper
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Streamlines the documentation process
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Makes meeting at a location easy
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Ability to communicate visually on the map
- SETTING UP A TRIP TO A REAL FIRE -
IAP Field Research
After narrowing to the E-IAP concept, we wanted more in-depth knowledge on the IAP and how it is being used on the field to be able to improve on the current processes and understand it's current context. Luckily, my recruiting and conversations with incident commanders paid off, and I was able to gain enough trust to coordinate a spur of the moment field trip to our first real live fire. The fire at Batterman Rd. had mostly been put out and they were just working on clean up, so it was safe and the incident command team had plenty of time to answer our questions and show us everything we wanted to see.
A Long Day at the Batterman Rd. Fire with the NW12 Incident Command Team
5:40am - Arrive at Incident Command Post
6:00am - Experience Morning Briefing
7:00am - Firefighter Breakfast
8:00am - Incident Commanders' Meeting
9:00am - Meeting Public Information Officers
10:00am - Planning Section Meeting
11:00am - Meeting Communications
12:00pm - Firefighter Sack Lunch and Section Chiefs and Command Staff Meeting
2:00pm - Trip to the field to see Division Supervisor
4:00pm - Section Chiefs and Command Staff Meeting
5:00pm - Meeting with Resources Unit
6:00pm - Firefighter Dinner
7:00pm - Section Chiefs and Command Staff IAP Approvals
8:00pm - Planning Section finalizes IAP
9:30pm - Planning Section prints IAP
9:45pm - Depart
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Going to the Batterman Rd. Fire gave us context for all our conversations with participants and grounded us in the reality of wildland fire incident management.
- WHAT WE LEARNED FROM BATTERMAN RD. -
Field Research Findings
By going to the fire, our team was able to experience and contextualize everything we learned in the previous 13 weeks which was critical in aligning the team in our knowledge base and grounded the team in reality.
No Communication Between Office and the Field
There are a few people that go out to the field from the office once a day to get situational awareness for people at the incident command post, but no way to casually communicate directly.
Almost Everyone has a Mobile, Tablet, and Desktop Device
Everyone in the office has a mobile, tablet, and desktop device. All the division supervisors have tablet mounts in their trucks and a mobile phone. The technology is already there--they just need software to connect them.
Manual Paper Process Between Field and Office
Even though the office is dependent on connectivity, the fact that there is no digital way to disseminate information to the field makes it necessary to use a manual process to create paper the IAP.
Takes 24 Hours to Make Changes Based on Schedule
The incident command team has a 24 hour schedule to update the IAP, the current process makes it hard to make spur of the moment decisions.
- DREAMING OF A NEW PROCESS -
Concept Storyboard
After our field research at the Batterman Rd. Fire and having deep conversations with the NW12 Incident Management Team, we came up with compelling ideas ground in the reality of the current context of Wildland Fire.
See below for our storyboard which includes low fidelity mockups that use tablet, desktop, and mobile interfaces.
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The E-IAP concept would give the incident management team more agency to make quicker decisions instead of going through the 24 hour process to plan each day.
- CLOSER LOOK -
Low Fidelity Mockups
Here's a few examples of some of the screens we made for our mockups for the storyboard.
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- ALIGNING THE TEAM VISUALLY -
Branding Workshops
I created and facilitated the branding workshops for my team in order to align us on our visual system and basic product consistency. This created more efficiency by helping the team understand what visual styles were being imagined and produced many more viable solutions.
- DEFINING FLOWS AND FEATURES -
Information Architecture (IA)
In order to ensure the adoption and success of this product, we made sure everything in the paper IAP was in the E-IAP. Then, we expanded the IA to accommodate the features we explored with our stakeholders.
Homepage IA
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General Menu IA
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Map Navigation IA
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- GETTING AROUND THE INTERFACE -
Navigation Iterations
Once we identified the key flows with the information architecture, we knew that we needed a usable and simple navigation to allow users to easily access and identify features.
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Made several iterations of the main menu navigation including top and left nav, top nav only, and left nav only and a floating horizontla nav.
Downselected Navigation Frame
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The team aligned on a floating vertical navigation due to the following reasons:
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Horizontal navigation was harder to reach and navigate to on a tablet
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Wanted to maximize the amount of space for the map on the screen since that was the primary way for users to visualize, receive, and distribute information. So instead of having a menu that took up the entire side, we opted for a minimal floating menu.
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Because of the specific needs of wildland fire management, menus with only icons did not provide enough affordances for what they were so added labels.
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Observation of how people hold their iPads, one hand on each side.
- GETTING FEEDBACK FROM OUR STAKEHOLDERS -
Remote High Fidelity Usability Tests
I facilitated two remote, moderated prototype assessment/explorative tests where the stakeholders were allowed to click around, give opinions, brainstorm, identify potential new features, and express their emotional opinions about the different ideas and concepts. We evaluated the product's general functionality by having them assess the prototype based on their satisfaction and how well they were able to use it.
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They also let us know who to talk to to get expert opinions on certain features that very specific people would know more about. Such as having the fire behavior expert and incident meteorologist look at the weather overlay and the image capture feature to update the fireline and weather.
- THE FEEDBACK -
Research Findings
For these usability tests, we ironed out a lot of simple issues such as conventions that didn't make sense, having the Incident Command System numbering system in the menu, taking advantage of the map more, making the menu easier to understand, etc.
Declutter Menu Options
Need to refine which features needed to be perpetual vs shown after specific actions
Maximize Use of Map Visuals
Add anything that can be visually depicted on the map with associated text for the most situational awareness.
Ability to Edit the Map Directly
Wanted more ability to interact with the map directly to communicate through the map to colleagues.
All Leads Need to Have Access
All leads need to have access because people in wildland fire change roles often in different situations.
- FIELD RESEARCH + PROTOTYPE ASSESSMENTS + VIDEOGRAPHY -
Camping Adventure at Whitmore Fire
Goals for the Whitmore Fire: (1) Get video assets for video (2) on-site assessments of the prototype from firefighters (3) always be learning.
I talked to at least 70+ people while I was camped at the Whitmore Fire from the Incident Management Team to firefighters on the line to contractors getting feedback about E-IAP and always asking questions.
Below is a video of my amazing experience!
I camped for three days with the NW12 Incident Management Team (IMT) at the start of a really intense fire that should have been taken over by a Type 1 IMT. I witnessed 20,000 acres being lost in one day and all the pressure that puts on the team with not enough resources. It was a wild ride.
- LEARNING BY IMMERSION -
On-Site Research Findings
My main takeaway was that all fires are different and you will always learn something new at every single one.
There seem to be three phases to a fire: the catching phase where you are trying to stop a rapid spread, the phase where you're finally starting to contain the fire, then when it's pretty much contained, and then the cleanup.
Each has different moving parts and different things that different people care about and in order to make a great product that works in many situations, you have to be there to experience all types of fires.
Key Positions at Incident Command Go Out to the Field
In order to act fast and get situational awareness during the day, people at incident command go out to the field to see for themselves in order to make quicker decisions when the fire is aggressive
People Change Positions and Take Multiple Positions
Most personnel are certified for many positions on the incident command team and on the field and they are flexible and can change positions just by notifying the people around them
When the Team Gets Stressed, People Get Creative
Sometimes one incident management team gets two fires and they have to strategize fighting two fires at once which means a lot of juggling. How can we support their creative thinking?
Hard to Find People on the Field, Map is Not Always Right
Meeting points may be incorrect leaving people waiting without knowing where the others are. When people at incident command drive out to the field and can't find the person they are looking for
- THE GRAND FINALE -
E-IAP Final Presentation
Our final 20 minute design presentation and 40 minute Q&A.
- OUR IMPACT -
Contributions to Wildland Fire and
Incident Management Teams
Our product is the tip of the spear that demonstrates that it is possible to improve incident management with digital applications and devices to streamline processes, make wildland firefighting safer and more efficient, and cut costs and shows one way to do so with digital technologies. There is so much more that can be done and this is only the beginning. This can be applied to any first responder situation that requires an incident management team.
We've made our research paper and presentation and design documentation and presentation public, and shared it with people in California State's Governor's Office and Office of Emergency Services, contributors to ATAK, Technosylva w/FiResponse, our advisors and professors, and let people know they were free to forward the information along to anyone that was interested so anyone can pick this project up where we left off. We also have a group that is proposing this project to CalFire. Feel free to connect for more information.
If you want to make a direct donation to wildland firefighters (like we did!) please contribute to the Wildland Firefighter Foundation.
- WHAT TO DO NEXT? -
Next Steps
In a perfect world, if we were to keep going with the E-IAP, the design process would continue to be a deep research and design iteration cycle with team members working in the field on live fires until we hit a point where we weren't learning that many new things and we were no longer having as many novel experiences in the field.
We have all the basics down, what needs to be done now is refinement, understanding nuances, and making sure all situations can be accounted for with the prototype.
Next, finalizing a design to undergo rigorous testing of the final prototype, preferably with other incident management teams that have never worked on the product and perfecting the product from there.
And then finally, coding a first version, making sure data can properly be connected with dispatch, weather services, fireline mapping services, etc. to test on the field parallel to the paper IAP until enough trust is built to run the E-IAP on its own--continuing to communicate and iterate throughout the process.
- PROCESSING THE JOURNEY -
Reflection
I loved this project because I was able to discover and explore a complex new world by building new relationships and understanding the people in it. Camping in the field for three days embedded with firefighters was amazing.
Barriers to Entry
We had to dig in to learn enough about wildland fire to speak the language to be taken seriously enough for people to talk to us and gain their trust enough to spend their spare time with us to build a product.
Relationships are Everything
It was tough to recruit people in wildland fire, in hundreds of emails and messages I'd get only a few responses, but it was one out of hundreds that we made a good impression and developed a great relationship with that gained us access to the wildfire.
Field Research was Key to this Project
We would have never known what it was really like and had a realistic product unless we went to a live fire and watched their processes.
Balance Ambition with Self-Care
I was ambitious on this project and got my team onboard with a lot of success, but I dropped the ball on self-care. In the future, I'm going to be much more mindful of my team's workload.
- WHAT PEOPLE SAY ABOUT US -
Kind Words
“This is the first time I’ve seen a research project done by students or somebody from outside the fire organization that actually grasped all the concepts. That’s not a small feat to learn wildland fire in such a small period of time.”
Richy Harrod, Incident Commander for Northwest 12 Incident Management Team
“Traditionally, so much effort goes into consumer applications and experiences whereas this project is an example making a positive impact in really meaningful, high stakes scenarios where technology can make a difference in critical situations and help first responders.”
“What you have done in 20 weeks is usually what we see in two year processes in slow university or research cultures and government development cycles, so this is impressive, very strong work.”
Axel Roesler, Professor for Interaction Design at University of Washington
“This team took into account the actual physical constraints, the technical constraints, and the social constraints. Other capstone challenges haven’t delved that deeply into those sets of constraints and how to respond to them accurately. And so the things that you’ve brought together have really made it into something that feels so real. Like this doesn’t feel like some esoteric academic exercise, this feels like a real product proposal that will really solve real problems and that makes all the difference.”
Loren O' Laughlin, Launch Consulting Advisor
“I hope that someone in the industry will take this project and run with it. There’s a great need for the E-IAP and it would bring wildland firefighting into modern times because we’re using planning processes that were developed in the early 1980s with many steps being very manual and labor intensive. It requires a lot of work and effort from a number of people to make the incident action plan a reality every day.”
Bob Shindelar, Incident Commander for Northwest 12 Incident Management Team
“I’m very impressed with how many of the items we brought up as ideas or challenges that I had only mentioned once, and seeing them incorporate nearly all of the things we talked about.”
Howard Johnson, Planning Section Chief for Northwest 12 Incident Management Team
“The team was delightful, we enjoyed every second we had with them. They came in energetic and like an open book asking question after question, ready to put what they learned into a product.”
Scott Crawford, Liason Officer for Northwest 12 Incident Management Team